Our bus left 1 Metro Tech Brooklyn at 6:30am and headed up through the Bronx making stops along the way to pick up other people. After a brief sleep I woke up to the smell of chicken rice and spaghetti with tomato sauce. Elisabeth refused to eat her food because she thought it was disgusting so I ate it for her. If felt good to be in a community where everyone was there for each other and helps each other, especially by hand making enough food for approximately 40 people. We got to Albany around 11:00 and we walked through city hall until we were lead to long corridor with a table and people gathered around it. We were usurer into partially empty room with with boxes from Au Bon Pain. I got a box with a chocolate chip cookie, and caprese sandwich, a bag of salt and vinegar chips and a bright green apples. We walked one room over to a room with about 400 engaged people sitting in rows of seats chanting along with a woman giving a speech.

We sat down and ate while we listened to people tell inspiring stories of great feats they had in Public Schools. A 12th grade student shared her story of her time at a Bachelorette High School in Long Island. After a fair number of speeches, we all stood up to leave the room. As we walked out volunteers stood at the doors and handed out balloons. The balloons were green with a orange ribbon and the words “stand up 4 kids.” We went to the front desk and helped hand out balloons as more people filed out. With everyone holding a balloon, we migrated to a line to wait to get passed security. The line for security was long with all of us trying to see legislators. People passed the time by chanting. The chants were simple but all had strong messages.

“Money for jobs and education, not for banks and corporations.”

“Education is a right, fight, fight, fight.”

“Get that money or shut it down. Say wha?”

“The people, united, will never be defeated.”

“Hey Cuomo, whaddya say? How many schools have you failed today?”

“Education is for the masses, not just the upper classes.”

“Hedge funders are rich and rude, we don’t like their attitude.”

“Help our students, help our schools, fund our dreams, give us the tools”

After waiting on the line for security for what felt like forever, we were sent through and followed up the the War Room. In the war room we participated in more chants similar to others. We then got envelopes with pins that we delivered to New York City legislators. Each New York City legislator was given a pin saying how much money schools in their district were owed. When handing out the pins, we asked the interns to tell the legislator they worked for that we would like them to wear the pins the next day (Wednesday) at the State of State Address. Some of the interns were happy to pass on the message and asked us further about the topic while others pushed us away in annoyance.

We then took a quick ice cream break before sitting in on a meeting with Catherine Nolan. The beginning of the meeting was lead by her intern but she soon returned from the meeting she was in before and moved on to speaking to us. After a long introduction from each person who she made long and personal connections with, spoke briefly about general information about what she does and the problems with the education system. Nolan had been given her pin the day before and been happily wearing it to stand up for her district. Along with us in the room was a mix of teachers, students, and workers from the Alliance for Quality Education. She said that cities create great schools and them give them bad space, as she said to the girl who attended theBachelorette High School, “We have to find a building for you.” She said that the Bachelorette High School (the same school Catherine Nolan’s son Nicholas had gone to) had been given a terrible space, one of the worst spaces, and yet it had so much potential. She said to a women who’s child attended the Louis Armstrong school “I cried the 1st time I was there.” This made her seem so much more connected to each person she spoke to. She then offered for everyone to see her office. I thought this was an interesting move because people had come to discuss their personal experiences with but she had zipped right through the meeting and not addressed any of their points. For that matter, she didn’t even let them say their points. Though she had a nice office, I didn’t go all the way to Albany to see it.

We then retreated to the bus for a long bus ride home.